PARIS, _February, 1842_.
An hour ago I read your letter, which has been on my table ever since
Tuesday, concealed under a pile of papers. Since you did not disdain my
gifts, I send you some conserves of roses, jessamine, and bergamot. You
might offer a jar of it to Madame de C., with my best respects. It seems
that I once offered you a pair of Turkish slippers, and you have
persisted in refusing them, so that I should like to send them to you
anyway. But since my return I have been robbed. No sign of any
slippers; I can not find them high or low. Will you accept this instead?
Perhaps this Turkish mirror will please you better; for you seem to me
to be even more coquettish than you were in the year of grace 1840. It
was in the month of December, and you wore striped silk stockings. That
is all that I remember.
It is for you to decide the protocol of which you speak. You do not
believe in my gray hair. Here is a sample in proof of it.
I give nothing without expecting a return. Before you go to Naples, you
will be good enough to take my directions and to bring me back what I
shall tell you. I might give you a letter to the director of the
Pompeiian excavations, if you are interested in such things.
You make of your precious self such a dazzling portrait that I see the
time of our next meeting postponed to the Greek Kalends. _Allah kerim!_
I am writing in the midst of such an infernal racket that I do not know
exactly what I am saying. I have a great many things to say, however,
about ourselves, which I shall defer until after I have heard from you.
Meanwhile, good-bye, and preserve that splendid bearing, that radiant
countenance, which I admired.